After seeing that the second stage had begun, Hazel and the others decided to put their village tour on hold for a bit and made their way over to Zoe. They could no longer ignore the looming threat that hung over them. They needed to come up with a plan to deal with the Spider Queen...and fast.

  While returning to the Jetport, the group then talked about their current predicament.

  “I didn’t expect our 24 hours to be up so soon,” Kane uttered. “Of course, I also didn’t expect that Queen’s range radius to increase to 1000 meters.”

  “It seems that the Spider Queen’s range doubles with each stage,” Anais noted. “Which means the third stage could very well be 2000 meters. Then 4000 thousand in the fourth stage...and who knows when we hit the final stage.”

  “Probably infinite, though I hope I’m wrong because that would be extremely busted.”

  The Radius of the Spider Queen’s range was concerning Hazel a bit. Anais could be right about her range doubling with each stage. And if that’s the case, then it won’t be long before the spider queen could sense them all the way to the Jetport base.

  This led to a rather big question; how were they supposed to deal with something like this? Not only were they on the clock, but none of them were strong enough to stand a chance against the queen.

  The Sentinels they fought before were level 30, which meant the Queen had to be higher than that. That alone told Hazel everything she needed to know about their situation. But again, what exactly could they do about the situation?

  Hazel had a couple of ideas about that...but she wasn’t certain that Zoe or the others were going to agree, knowing how risky it is.

  “May I ask what you all are referring to regarding this spider queen?” Chegyaeyi asked, walking beside Hazel and Astrid.

  Right, Hazel forgot that the lizardfolk warrior wasn’t there when the whole spider swarm attack happened before. She was likely confused as to what they were talking about.

  “Some of us got cursed by the Spider Queen for killing her children,” Hazel explained.

  “After an entire swarm was disturbed and chased after us,” Astrid added.

  [Hazel Thatcher: You still haven’t forgiven me for that?]

  [Astrid Skogr: Shouldn’t that be obvious?]

  Hazel stifled a grumble while mentally putting the chat room away.

  “Ah, and now that you’re cursed by the queen, she is trying to kill you?” Chegyaeyi surmised.

  “Pretty much,” Hazel answered. “According to the quest, the curse has five stages. We just entered the second stage, which means we have three more left before the fifth and final one.”

  “And what happens when you reach the fifth stage...?” Chegyaeyi asked hesitantly.

  “Then the queen will come out of her nest and deal with us herself,” Astrid answered.

  “Well, that is rather problematic, isn’t it...?”

  “You have no idea,” Hazel said with a heavy sigh.

  “Because we’re now on the second stage, we need to talk with Zoe so we can figure out how to deal with this,” Anais explained. “If we wait any longer, the final stage will be upon us, and then we will be dealing with the Spider Queen. And we’ll be completely unprepared when they happen.”

  Anais was unfortunately right about them being on the clock right now. Especially after taking a look at their current time until the third stage.

  [The Second stage of [The Mark of the Spider Queen] will now commence! The spider queen is currently able to sense you within a One-Thousand-Meter radius! Within that range, she will send Infant Spiders, Spider Sentinels, and Web Weavers to attack and kill you! The curse can only be broken when either the players marked by the Spider Queen or the Queen herself dies!]

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  [Time Remaining until Next Stage: One Day]

  It seemed that each stage would commence after a single day. After today, the third stage would be upon them. Then the fourth, then the last stage. And if their time was consistent, that meant they had three more days before the final stage would commence.

  They clearly didn’t have a lot of time, which was why they needed to come up with a plan and fast. Before it was too late.

  The group sprinted through the woods, making their way over to the Jetport building. It didn’t take long before they finally made it to their destination. Upon their arrival, they entered the building and searched for Zoe.

  They knew she likely wasn’t on the first floor, so they climbed up to the second and searched the floor for her. Thankfully, it didn’t take long before they stumbled across the Knight who was currently sprinting around, likely trying to get to Hazel and the others after seeing the message panels as well.

  As soon as the Knight spotted Hazel and the rest, she rushed toward them in a panic.

  “I assume you all are here because of the message panel regarding the spider queen?”

  “What else?” Kane responded with a sly grin, prompting Anais to drive her elbow into his side.

  While Kane groaned from the slight pain, Anais spoke up in his stead, not that he had much of a choice in the matter. “The panel stated that we’re now on the second stage and much like before, we only have a day before reaching the third.”

  Zoe nodded. “That’s right. Which is why we should deal with this situation while it's still manageable.” She then turned her back to the others. “Follow me. We should discuss this further somewhere else that’s more private.”

  Hazel and the others didn’t waste any time and followed the Knight. Instead of staying on the second floor, the group soon climbed up to the third floor, which was more vacant than the previous one.

  With them being in a very desolate part of the building, the group moved away from the stairs and walked over to one of the many empty spaces provided for them.

  “We should really make a meeting room or something,” Kane grumbled. “Talking like this out in the open is not it.”

  “We can work on that later,” Zoe stated as she turned and faced them. “For now, we have bigger problems. Like how we plan to deal with the spider queen and her curse.”

  Now that all of the members, excluding Chegyaeyi, were present, it was time to discuss the matter of the curse placed on them.

  “Maybe we should just go into the queen’s nest and kill her?” Kane suggested while raising his hand. “Usually in situations like this, the best solution is to kill the queen before reaching the final stage.”

  “And why is that?” Zoe questioned.

  “Because normally, when a boss monster hits a final stage, they become stronger. So much so that they could very well become impossible to kill. And considering our current levels, that would put us in a very bad spot.”

  Hazel’s eyes widened upon Kane’s explanation. She hadn’t thought about their situation like that, but considering how everything was so game-like, then what he said could very well be true. And that terrified her greatly.

  If what Kane said was true, that meant once they were on the fifth stage, the spider queen would become a lot stronger likely due to the Stage’s buffs applied to her. This meant that their best option was to go into the next and kill the queen before reaching the final stage.

  But that in itself wasn’t so easy, and that was because of one major problem. One that prevented them from attempting this.

  “Even if we wanted to storm into the queen’s nest to kill her, she’s capable of sensing us from a one-thousand-meter radius,” Anais pointed out. “The moment we step one foot in her range, then she would send her children out to kill us.”

  That’s right. Because of the queen’s ability to sense them when they were within range, there was no way for the group to sneak into the nest and take her down. Plus, there were other issues with this plan as well.

  By entering the spider queen’s nest, they essentially would be entering her domain. That was both too reckless and disadvantageous for them. The queen and her children had the upper hand if they fought in their territory. However, there might not be much of a difference if they fought outside of the nest when they reached the fifth and final stage.

  Putting all of this into account, it was clear to everyone that they were at a clear disadvantage when it came to dealing with the spider queen. They couldn’t risk going into the Queen’s nest because not only could the queen sense them from a thousand meters away, but also because they would be in her territory and lose the upper hand against her if they even had any.

  Despite their obvious problems, Hazel still saw an opportunity presented to them. And she knew just how to handle the situation and turn it to their advantage.

  Hazel raised her hand, catching the eyes of the others.

  “What is it, Hazel?” Zoe asked.

  “I have an idea of what to do about this.”

  Hearing this, Zoe and the others waited for her to give an answer. Hazel paused for a moment to conjure the courage to say it. Then, she simply blurted it out without pondering over it much longer.

  “I think we should simply prepare ourselves for the final stage and attack the Spider Queen then.”

  As soon as she uttered those words, the rest of the group blankly stared at Hazel while looking dumbfounded. All the while, she simply waited for the others to collect themselves so she could further explain her plan.

  Still, she knew that it likely wasn’t going to be easy to explain her train of thought involving this, but this was pretty much the only solution for them.

  Since they couldn’t attack the Queen on her turf, their only option was to prepare to attack them when she inevitably entered theirs.